gift

Distinctions

minchah (מנחה)

The commonest of the six, over two hundred appearances, and the word the Torah uses four times for Yaakov's tribute of five hundred and fifty animals to Esav (Bereishis 32:14, 32:19-22). Rav Hirsch: a minchah is a gift of homage, by which the giver shows his subservience; it serves the giver's interest in demonstrating his dependence. Rabbi Shlomo Aharon Wertheimer takes it differently, as a gift that gains the giver atonement. Rabbi Yaakov Tzvi Mecklenburg: a minchah can be an outright tax or tribute paid by a subject to his master, as the subjugated Moavim paid David (Shmuel II 8:2) and as Hoshea, the last king of Yisrael, paid his Assyrian overlord (Melachim II 17:3). Radak and others root it in nach/nachah, "placed, rested," since the gift is meant to settle and placate the recipient.

Rabbi Mecklenburg presses further: the more submission a gift shows, the more it deserves the name minchah. Hence Tefillas Minchah, said as the sun is on its way down, bowing, as it were, before Hashem; and hence the poor man's offering, the Korban Minchah, in which the giver shows plainly that he is handing over the little he has.

matanah (מתנה)

Some twenty appearances. Wertheimer: matan and matanah are formed from the verb of giving itself, and the word fixes on the giving. The column notes that English gift and give likewise share an etymology, on the interchange of the f and v sounds. A matanah is given where the recipient needs something and the giver gains nothing from it beyond having filled that need, which is why it builds friendship and camaraderie, and why it is mandated on Purim, matanos la'evyonim (Esther 9:22). Rabbi Mecklenburg writes that matanah is not used of an offering to Hashem and leaves the reason unstated; the article supplies it, that a matanah fills a need and Hashem, being complete, has none.

shai (שי)

Three appearances: Yeshayahu 18:7, Tehillim 76:12, Tehillim 68:30. Rabbi Avraham Bedersi HaPenini: shai is yesh ("there is") reversed, because a shai is a gift of real substance. Wertheimer: it is a gift the giver holds to be significant while for the receiver it is nothing special, which is why every appearance of shai in Tanach is a gift to Hashem and the word never occurs in any other setting.

teshurah (תשורה)

A hapax legomenon, Shmuel I 9:7. Midrash Shocher Tov (Tehillim 87) expounds it as the sort of tribute that people look at and sing praises over. Wertheimer reads the Midrash as splitting the root two ways: shur, a kind of seeing, and shir, a song. A teshurah is the most honorable and eye-catching present one can bring. Malbim narrows the setting: it is the gift presented on greeting an eminent figure, a kind of minchah, given when one comes to a navi or a holy man for a berachah or a prophecy. Its purpose is to settle the receiver's body so that he can rise past his physical limits and let his spiritual influence flow back to the giver, so that giver and receiver trade places. This is why Yitzchak asked Esav for a meal before blessing him (Bereishis 27).

eshkar (אשכר)

Twice in Tanach (Tehillim 72:10, Yechezkel 27:15) and obscure. Radak is unsure whether the root is all four letters or only the last three (ש-כ-ר, "beer" or "drunk"). Rabbi Avraham ben Chaim Ibn Ramoch: a minchah is gold, silver, and precious stones while an eshkar is choice fruits, which the article reads as inedible against edible, and which would explain the link to sheichar. Wertheimer: an eshkar is a gift whose worth is aesthetic rather than monetary or useful, a gift that bribes the recipient into overrating it, leaving him as though intoxicated (shikur) and unable to weigh its real value. Malbim relates eshkar to sachar, "reward" or "payment," the shin shifting to a sin.

doron (דורון)

It does not appear in Tanach at all. Targum Yonasan renders the minchah Yaakov sent Esav as doron. Rabbi Eliyahu HaBachur (Sefer HaTishbi) notes that doron is not Aramaic but Greek for "gift"; it stands in Hebrew as a loanword. The column adds that it is close in sense to the name Theodore, "God's gift" in Greek, which is the parallel to the Hebrew name Yonasan, "Hashem's gift."

Rendering guidance

• Minchah outside the korbanos: tribute where submission is the point (Shmuel II 8:2, Melachim II 17:3), gift where it is Yaakov to Esav. Inside the korbanos: meal-offering, but that is the context speaking, not the word, per Rabbi Mecklenburg's note.
• Matanah: gift, plain. Matanos la'evyonim stays transliterated.
• Shai: tribute in the pesukim where it is brought to Hashem, and never "little present"; on Bedersi's reading the word means the opposite, and even on Wertheimer's the smallness is only in the receiver's eyes.
• Teshurah: presentation gift, or "a gift of greeting" where Malbim's setting is in view.
• Eshkar: leave it transliterated and gloss the machlokes; there is no settled English.
• Trap: English "gift" will absorb minchah, matanah, shai, and teshurah at a stroke, and the whole distinction is who the gift serves. If a passage contrasts them, hold the axis: tribute (serves the giver) against gift (serves the receiver).
• Trap: "offering" reads as sacrificial in English. Do not use it for a minchah sent between men.

Sources

Rabbi Reuven Chaim Klein, "The Gift of Giving," What's in a Word?, Ohr Somayach, 23 Kislev 5779 (2018-12-01): raw text in sources/whats-in-a-word/raw/7982-the-gift-of-giving.md. Primary loci: Bereishis 32:14, 32:19-22, and ch. 27; Shmuel II 8:2; Melachim II 17:3 (the article prints the book name as "II Kimgs"); Esther 9:22 for matanos la'evyonim (the article prints 9:23); Yeshayahu 18:7; Tehillim 68:30, 72:10, 76:12; Yechezkel 27:15; Shmuel I 9:7; Midrash Shocher Tov to Tehillim 87; Rabbi Eliyahu HaBachur, Sefer HaTishbi s.v. doron.